Election 2024
Election Preview
Analysts are watching both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump for potential regulatory picks, as well as how strongly Trump advocates for policies like tariffs and deportations that could impact the economy, inflation and bankers' prospects.
Markets welcomed the news of a second Trump presidency.
"If you had the Trump trade on for the last six weeks, it's been outstanding," said Ed Al-Hussainy, a rates strategist at Columbia Threadneedle Investment. "The question is these winning runs don't last forever and is this a good time to take profits."
While the message from investors is broadly positive, there is also a stern warning in the market gyrations.
The surge in Treasury yields underscores concerns that Trump's policies will swell an already bloated budget deficit and reignite an inflation spiral that the Federal Reserve was only just finally quelling in the wake of the pandemic.
A bill to draw crypto's jurisdictional lines between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is pitting increasingly crypto-friendly Democrats against consumer protection hawks in the Senate.
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The failures of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic shook the banking system and sparked renewed debate among regulators and lawmakers about deposit insurance, bank capital and liquidity rules and resolvability. One year later, some of those policy debates have fallen by the wayside while others have been amplified.
Graham Steele, formerly the assistant secretary for financial institutions at the Treasury Department, laid out a detailed bank regulatory reform agenda for future progressive policymakers to consider that includes rolling bank Trump administration-era tailoring rules and accounting for the increased digitization of the banking system.
Election speculation about policy change at Fannie Mae has boosted its stock slightly this year. It's also profitable, but there's much more to consider.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis announced a forthcoming bill that would require the government to hold 5% of the global bitcoin supply. Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have also called for strategic holdings of the cryptocurrency.
As a senator, the likely Democratic nominee for President championed an agency that did early work on payment technology, setting the stage for a central bank digital currency.
Despite being a top concern for a wide swath of voters, housing affordability has largely been absent from presidential politics.
Vice President Kamala Harris has kept a low profile in banking policy, and there is a reasonable expectation that her administration would pick up where Biden left off. But if she wanted to, Harris could reset Democrats' financial policy agenda.
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Congressional Review Act resolutions are ramping up ahead of the 2024 election cycle. Experts say that, although none are likely to become law, the resolutions are still powerful messaging and political tools.
April 24
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As recently as a few months ago, many observers predicted a surge of bank mergers this year. But longtime obstacles to dealmaking are still there and have been joined by new ones.
April 21
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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created to protect the people from financial predation. But there are very different interpretations of what that means, and whether the people should be protected by — or from — the government.
April 18
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A regulatory proposal to raise bank capital has spurred banks to fight back with a populist appeal to consumers, while regulators say more capital is what's needed to save banks from more crises — and help consumers.
April 11
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West Virginia Treasurer Riley Moore, who's put banks on a blacklist for their support of ESG policies, is up for (and very likely to win) one of the state's two seats in the U.S. House. Here's how he got there, and what it'll look like when he tries to bring his anti-ESG policies national.
April 10
